Jacob Sullum
A court decision against a Louisiana man who made a COVID joke illustrates the continuing influence of a misbegotten, century-old analogy that is frequently used as an excuse to punish or censor constitutionally protected speech.
The six-part miniseries vividly portrays Purdue Pharma’s reckless marketing of OxyContin. But it dismisses the caveat: that there are legitimate medical uses for this drug and other prescription opioids.
Powers granted by the bill would invite more unconstitutional mischief, especially in the hands of ideologically driven, politically ambitious attorneys general.
In both of these cases, the charges and penalties are not reliable indicators of what justice requires. It’s a distinction that members of both parties should keep in mind.
The Biden administration is confident that it can lick the xylazine menace by stepping up efforts to “reduce and disrupt the illicit supply chain and go after traffickers.”
Even “verifiable misinformation” is protected by the First Amendment, which means the government has no business trying to suppress it.
The circumstances involved in the Department of Justice plan to retry a Florida nursing home operator for health care fraud is an example of the nation’s broken system for granting clemency.
Trump seems determined to show, by re-upping his kill-them-all proposal, that he can be even more mindlessly punitive than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
GOP legislators have portrayed the criminal charges against Trump as politically motivated. But as former Attorney General William Barr noted, Trump “provoked this whole problem himself.”